Coaching of basketball players includes teaching of skills that will produce proper movement of many parts of the body to enhance the accuracy of shots directed to the basket. Included in these skills is the proper positioning and control of the shooting arm of the player.
Several training aids for teaching the proper motion of the shooting arm of the player are represented by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,820,783 to Caveness, 4,383,685 to Bishop, and 4,579,341 to Furr. All of these patents teach an apparatus that includes a harness arrangement that must be accurately fitted and applied to the torso of the user. Complicated and cumbersome hardware is included with the harness to guide the shooting arm. All of these aids appear to require assistance from another person to properly attach the apparatus to the user. These patents also only address an aid for the purpose of controlling the positioning and movement of the elbow of the user ignoring control of the positioning of the arm itself. Another U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,217 to Swain only deals with an apparatus worn by the user that controls the action of the wrist of the user during a shot.
It is known that proper motion of the shooting arm of a player, whether executing a set shot or a jump shot, should not be allowed to bend more than 90 degrees prior to shooting towards the basket.